We did, keeping it quick and efficient, with Henry and Lucia signing as witnesses. Granny Irene added her shaky signature last, beaming like she’d just won the lottery.
The room felt lighter after that, the sunlight slanting golden across the green leaves and multicolored blooms. Lucia pressed flutes of champagne into our hands — non-alcoholic for Granny so it wouldn’t affect her meds — and raised hers.
“To new beginnings. And to kicking ass tomorrow.”
“Hear, hear,” Henry echoed, clinking glasses.
Granny cackled.
“That’s my girl.”
We lingered a while longer, the four of them trading stories. Lucia teasing Henry about his ‘questionable’ orchestration of this event, Ben recounting tales of times he’d spent with his mother in the lodge’s rose garden. Granny Irene held court from her chair, declaring Ben ‘a fine catch, even if he had startedout life as a spoiled rich boy’ which had him choking on his champagne.
When the nurses from Bayview arrived and said it was time to take Granny back to the hospice, I hugged her tight, breathing in the familiar powdery floral scent of her.
“Baby girl,” she murmured in my ear, voice a little foggy but warm. “You look so happy.”
“I am,” I whispered. “I am, Granny.”
“Good,” she said. Then, sharper, “He better keep you that way, or I’ll come back and haunt his ass after I die.”
I choked on a laugh.
“Please do.”
She patted my cheek, then let the nurses wheel her away, waving the whole time.
The room slowly emptied after that. Lucia made a big show of telling us she’d ‘handle cleanup’ and that we werenotto step foot in her kitchen tonight.
Eventually, it was just me and Ben and the faint echo of our voices in the high-ceilinged solarium.
He stood near one of the tall windows, hands in his pockets, staring out at the dark sweep of the lawn. Ice hadn’t fallen again, but the frost on the windows catching the afternoon light made it look like a magical winter wonderland nonetheless.
I walked up beside him, my dress whispering over the floor.
“Hey,” I said softly.
He didn’t look at me right away.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
A humorless sound escaped him.
“Define ‘okay’.”
I bumped my shoulder gently against his arm.
“Define it however you want.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Part of me…” He exhaled. “Part of me can’t believe this is real. That you’re here. That you’re my wife.”
The word sent a little shock through me. I was his wife.
Part of me wanted to flinch at the possessiveness and ownership baked into the word, but part of me adored it, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
